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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29329176">Fake Marriage AU, Obviously</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillow/pseuds/Lillow'>Lillow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Other, art deserves a beach wedding, in cargo shorts and a tshirt, murderbot would want to elope in town hall</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:06:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,655</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29329176</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillow/pseuds/Lillow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>No fake marriage au in this whole fandom, so I guess I gotta write it myself. Be the change you want to see in the world and all that. Anyway here’s the time Murderbot fake married ART...kind of.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Asshole Research Transport &amp; Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>I was on some job with the University on some colony planet between semesters. I’m not sure the name of the planet, I only know that we were here to feel out the possibility of the locals wanting some independence from the corporations. This particular terraforming effort had been abandoned, but the colony had been far enough along that they managed to survive. It was fifty planetary years later, a whole generation had been born and raised and become middle-aged since the corporation had left. Therefore there was an opposite issue. They were already free, as far as many of them were concerned. ART’s crew were now having the issue of forcing them to believe that a corporation would inevitably come after them and their resources and yes they did actually need the University’s forged documentations of ownership; only some of the elderly remembered the corporations. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was all extremely uninteresting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Up until one quarter of the colony’s solar farms exploded as Seth, Iris, and Martyn sat with the governing body of the council not more than a few hundred meters away. Seth was clocked by debris and chaos ensued 5.4 seconds later. Right as I was about to learn who the real killer was in my new serial </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wormhole Jumpers Team Alpha </span>
  </em>
  <span>(I was 87% sure it was the station commander’s second husband).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But anyway, to fast forward, it was all very uninteresting. People were evacuated, Seth was shuttled back to ART, and I stayed on the planet (have I mentioned how I hate planets?) to assist Iris and other member’s of ART’s crew with the investigation as to what caused the explosion, because of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course </span>
  </em>
  <span>the humans decided that going towards the source of the explosion was smarter than going away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fast forwarding because we found out the explosion was on purpose, because of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course</span>
  </em>
  <span> it was, and I had discovered there were more explosives all over the farm that had failed go off, clearly intending to destroy the whole solar farm, which would have crippled the colony horribly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But that wasn’t the stressful part. The stressful part was </span>
  <em>
    <span>now, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and now was me and the elected leader of the colony stuck together in a tiny mine shaft (mine shafts and planets, I was having a bad day) trying to repair the connections from the solar farm to the main colony hub. The only reason I was here was because Iris had asked me to, and Iris was ART’s favorite human, and frankly I didn’t feel like dealing with ART giving me shit for disrespecting Iris, out of all of it’s crew. I also had the beginning of a hunch that the colony leader had nefarious intentions (note: look up the definition of nefarious). Therefore I decided I shouldn’t hand the big heavy tools to the colony leader, which I excused with common courtesy because the colony leader had difficulty lifting them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>We weren’t too deep in, and using drones as a relay I was getting a decent connection to ART.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s suspicious, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Art said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yeah, no shit.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Well no need to be rude about it.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I hated ART’s immense processing power sometimes. It could help repair the solar farm, tend to the wounded, run analysis on how to optimize the remaining panels so the colony didn’t come up short on their power needs, and fabricate replacement panels from it’s own resources all while having enough processing power left to harass me and make obvious statements.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So,” the colony leader spoke, and my mechanical-organic equivalent of a heart sank. Nothing good came from a conversation with a human that started with “so”.</span>
</p>
<p><span>“Ya married?” He asked. I sputtered. Of course there would be small talk. Planets and mine shafts and </span><em><span>small</span></em> <em><span>talk.</span></em><span> My bad day was becoming worse by the minute.</span></p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Say yes, </span>
  </em>
  <span>ART said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Why?</span>
  </em>
  <span> I shot back, stunned.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I believe he’s suspicious of your status as an augmented human. Pretending to be married could help with your cover story.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I didn’t like that logic, especially because I had begun to pick up on the colony leader’s suspicions as well, and the marriage lie would make sense.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had been 3 seconds since the colony leader asked the question, and a subjective eternity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Um. Yes. I’m married,” I lied.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The colony leader nodded “Are you sure? You seemed hesitant.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, I’m married, its just, uh, recent.” Why was I answering questions that haven’t been asked? I was cursed. Yes, that was it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They got a name?” Why was this human so nosey. I scrambled to think of a name. I went with the first one that popped into my head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Art.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh? I don’t recall you proposing. </span>
  </em>
  <span>I could feel how smug ART was in the feed, and I was acutely aware of how much of their attention I suddenly had. Enough to fill the mine shaft, subjectively.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Shut the fuck up, just shut the fuck up. Shut up. No. Fuck you. It was the first name I could think of. Shut up. </span>
  </em>
  <span>But it was far too late.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I want a summer wedding on the beach, like in episode 198 of Sanctuary Moon.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What? You wouldn’t fit on a beach. Also that wedding was a cover up.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Just like our marriage, that’s why it’s perfect.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I was grinding my teeth and realized the human was talking to me. I had to rewatch my footage at five times the speed to catch up. He had asked how long I had known Art. My human spouse Art. That I definitely had.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The real ART was doing the equivalent of cackling madly in the feed as I said “Feels like forever,” still grinding my teeth so it came out a little muffled. The colony leader (I should probably try and remember his name but I just didn’t care enough) nodded, like I had said something meaningful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Love be like that, sometimes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Love be like that sometimes, </span>
  </em>
  <span>ART echoed while doing the equivalent of jerkily talking through laughter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I huffed and cut it out of my feed, which would do nothing, but made me feel better.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The human must’ve sensed my discomfort and dropped the subject much to my immense relief.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>ART popped back into my feed minutes later, like I hadn’t hard blocked it with no less than three of my best firewalls and two more on top just for good measure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There was a second explosion in the colony hub, you need to get out of there. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It was no longer laughing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I had been so distracted by the </span>
  <em>
    <span>small talk </span>
  </em>
  <span>that I hadn’t noticed three of my back burnered drones had gone offline, ones that were stationed in the colony hub. I dropped the tools and ran.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A lot of things happened in quick succession, and I briefly forgot about the mine shaft incident.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was discovered that it wasn’t the colony leader who was to blame, but his secretary. The secretary had apparently been in contact with a potential new corporation that wanted to take over the planet, and had been paid a large sum to cripple the colony, so that when the corporation came in the colony would be desperate for their help. The secretary had to speed up their plans when ART and it’s crew had come along. It was, to put it mildly, quite the clusterfuck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the whole situation did an excellent job at convincing the rest of the colony that they really did need those papers, since apparently the corporation was only a planetary month away from arriving to take over. Martyn and Iris worked out the details and the University’s legal team was contacted and fired up for a long drawn out court battle. ART and I and the rest of the crew would remain long enough to help the colony recover from the explosions and then act as representatives for the University while we waited for the actual lawyers to show up. Then there were a lot of discussions I didn’t understand and finally, finally we returned to ART. Or Iris and I did, since Martyne and a few of the crew remained planetside. I was ok with this, since the secretary had been working alone and there were no other bombs found.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Welcome home, marital partner. Does arriving in my shuttle count as me carrying you across the threshold? If not I can always send some drones, </span>
  </em>
  <span>ART said cheerily as soon as I stepped out of the airlock.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Iris’s eyes widened and her attention snapped to me. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What?!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>she exclaimed as I turned on my heel and attempted to return to the shuttle, because it had said that out loud over it’s comms. I would take staying on the planet over this; even thought it wasn't like it would make any difference. ART shut the door before I could make it back in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I threw derogatory gestures at the ceiling. “Fuck you.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But once again, it was too late, and ART began to play the recording for Iris as I stalked away. I could hear her peels of laughter from down the hall and around a corner as my cheeks burned.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>So this WAS just supposed to be a funny haha hehe oneshot, but then the ending of the first chapter made me realize there needed to be a second one. So anyway here's a bot and a construct being in love but not really because they don't feel things the same way we feel things, but still feeling something adjacent to love and not knowing what the FUCK to do about it, and hurting and mending each other's feeling along the way. Take it, you sluts.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>I apologize for causing you...discomfort earlier.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The ping came six hours after the event on the colony planet and I had returned to ART with Iris and some of the crew. I had returned to my bunk (I had a whole room to myself that I could go to any time and lock the door and I wasn’t sure if I would ever get used to it) after everyone was securely onboard and well into the rest period.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I pointedly did not acknowledge ART because I didn’t feel like arguing, and not because I wasn’t done with my snit, even though I knew it had joined me in the feed 54 minutes ago to continue watching Wormhole Jumpers Team Alpha.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It was not my intention to upset you. I assumed some levity would relieve the awkwardness of the situation.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I continued to watch the media and not say anything, even though I had stopped paying attention in truth. There was more silence, and I considered ART’s words and (ugh) the day’s events. I had been stuck in a mine (ugh) with a human who wanted to make small talk (ugh) and had to come up with some lie about being </span>
  <em>
    <span>married </span>
  </em>
  <span>(UGH) of all things to protect my lie about being an augmented human. I had panicked, to say the least, and when the colony leader had asked the name of my spouse I had said the first thing that had come to mind. I had said “Art” since said bot had been in my feed at the time instructing me to lie in the first place. It was a completely understandable jump, but then it had </span>
  <em>
    <span>made fun of me </span>
  </em>
  <span>at my expense and showed the recordings to </span>
  <em>
    <span>Iris </span>
  </em>
  <span>of all people, which was, frankly, not cool.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know damn well that wasn’t necessary and if it had been it could have happened not around Iris,” I said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another long pause. For something with as much processing power as ART, it often took a long time to do the actual processing. I could only guess what it was thinking during these long moments of silence, but I didn’t really want to. I had found the point in Wormhole Jumpers I had stopped paying attention and was about to resume watching when it finally spoke.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You are correct. This is why I’m apologising.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I huffed and resumed the media. We made it through two more episodes before the silence was broken.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m not sure why I did it.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because you’re an asshole, obviously. Sometimes simple questions require simple answers.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No I don’t think that’s it. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>ART’s tone had soured somewhat, but less than I had expected. Like it wasn’t really that bothered by me calling it an asshole (something I did very rarely these days, it was really more of a ‘pulling out the big guns’ move as Iris had put it once).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Art had gone silent again, but I was just irritated enough now to no longer have the patience for it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, what do you think it was?” I asked, trying to not sound as annoyed as I was while also not caring enough to try that hard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <em>
    <span>I’m not sure.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well let me know once you figure that out because I’m not accepting your apology.” And I blocked it from my feed and resumed the media. ART could catch up on Wormhole Jumpers on it’s own damn time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Maybe, just maybe, this was bothering me more than I thought.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>********************</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you and Peri fighting?” Iris asked me via ambush when I had returned from my somewhat unnecessary perimeter check of ART’s interior. There wasn’t really much of a perimeter to check, but I had convinced myself that we could never really know how far the corporates were willing to go to maintain the colony planet. Sure they were a month out from arriving, and sure, all the evidence I had personally gathered indicated that it was just the colony secretary who had been working with them to sabotage the colony, and sure, maybe I was a little tired of my bunk and stewing in my own head, but you never could be too sure, is what I had told myself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Iris had been coming from the kitchen heading back to her room when she had apparently decided to ambush me (it had nothing to do with us both heading in the same direction by coincidence) into talking about my relationship with ART. How dare she.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.” I wasn’t going to ask “why do you ask?” but then my mouth that I had yet to set that one second delay on asked instead, “Why? Has it been talking to you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Iris’s eyes and mouth wrinkled in that way I knew meant she had just learned something, and she felt very clever. Fuck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, but I know Peri, and I’m starting to know you, and I think you’re fighting. Is it about the situation from earlier?” The fuck did she think she knew about me, again? She didn’t know me. No one knew me, I hardly knew me. Except maybe Dr. Mensah, but she was an exception. Maybe ART a little bit, too, but I was mad at it and therefore that didn’t count.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I made eye contact with her for the first time since she had cornered me in the hallway and said, “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Iris,” and I held her gaze. Either I was not nearly as scary as I thought I was, or Iris was just too tired from getting up for her mid rest period snack, but my undivided eye contact seemed to not intimidate her in the least bit, which meant I was screwed. I went back to looking past her shoulder and entirely watching her through the cameras.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re right, it’s not really, but if you would like my unsolicited opinion-” “I don’t,” I said, but she unfortunately persevered. “-then I think you should know Peri was very excited about your interaction earlier. I think it’s eagerness overrode it’s judgment, because I know it sharing that with me made you uncomfortable. Just something to think about.” She finished, waited a moment out of habit to see if I would respond, but turned and continued down the hallway when she remembered, as she always did, that I was not human and therefore would not be responding like a human in that brief pause after she had spoken.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I suspected she wasn’t quite done, though, because she turned and looked in my direction, at my torso, and said, “I won’t tell anyone. Well, I’m going to tell my dads’, obviously, but I’m not going to spread it around the whole crew. You hear me, Peri? We’re not telling everyone, because that’s inconsiderate of SecUnit’s feelings.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes, Iris, I hear you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>ART said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This seemed to satisfy Iris, because she resumed walking to her room, making no more stops. I waited until I saw her make it all the way back to her room and watched her lie back down in her bed before I spoke.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What did she mean by that?”</span>
  <span></span><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What did she mean by what?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I rolled my eyes. I was only in a slightly better mood than before, and that mood was still not ready to deal with ART’s bullshit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No, really, which part? There are multiple worth dissections.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I sighed, and began heading back to my room. I didn’t speak until I sat back down in the big, comfortable chair in front of my desk, that I used to service my drones when I felt like doing it myself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s start with why. Why did you show Iris?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I suppose exactly why she said; I was excited.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But why? What could have excited you so much?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m not sure, yet. I’m still parsing it. You will have to bear with me while I figure it out.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I could feel my anger cooling. Now I could tell ART was being sincere, and I couldn’t tell if that meant I should be concerned since ART had done something impulsively that I was pretty sure it wouldn’t have done normally. Because, yeah, it had kind of fucking sucked. It was a more asshole-ish move than normal for ART. I had </span>
  <em>
    <span>thought </span>
  </em>
  <span>that we were starting to get to know each other well enough to know where some of our boundaries lay. Many I didn’t know I had until they were crossed or brushed up against. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I had been on quite a number of missions with the University at this point and had decided to continue doing them until I either grew bored or wanted to go back to PreservationAux. Neither of those things would be happening anytime soon. Especially the growing bored since I was, somehow, enjoying myself. And it seemed every once in a while I would find out something new about myself. I suppose finally doing something that </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>wanted for a change meant I also got to find out all sorts of things about myself. Most of them I didn’t like, most of them stressed me out more than anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>ART...ART had been good. I would find a new boundary, and decide never to approach the topic again, while ART would approach it like a human would check a cooking surface to see if it had risen to the correct temperature. Go near, but not near enough to burn. ART would force me along for this experience. We had dissected more of my feelings than I had ever cared to in my entire time since going rogue, mostly because ART had decided they </span>
  <em>
    <span>would </span>
  </em>
  <span>be, whether I wanted to or not. It was always probing, but rarely in a way that was really awful like I had expected it to be. We would tear apart my reactions carefully, cautiously. It seemed to have decided to be extra careful ever since forcing my abduction from PreservationAux and putting my crew in danger. The first real boundary it had crossed, which had nearly ended our friendship.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At the time it had been awful, but understandable, once I was (mostly) done being so angry. I had forgiven it, and once we began missions together after the fact, we had even discussed it a few times. I never thought I would want to but ART was so </span>
  <em>
    <span>practical </span>
  </em>
  <span>in it’s approach;  it’s intentions laid so plain and bare I never found myself angry for long.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I suppose that’s why this was such a surprise. ART had blabbed to Iris something it should have known was embarrassing to me, in front of me, and then had seemed to derive some joy from it, and I thought we had moved past behavior like that. Then it had the audacity to lie about why it had done it straight to me. Why?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It occured to me, then, that ART may be just as embarrassed by it’s actions as I was. Ugh. I was never going to enjoy the emotions that came with being a person.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you really regret doing what you did?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then I forgive you.” There was a shift in ART’s presence that I realized was the equivalent of the human action of letting out a deep breath after a sustained time of high anxiety. Huh. I hadn’t really noticed it was doing that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So why do you think you did it? Iris said excitement, and she does know you pretty well, so she can’t be too far off. What excited you?” I was acutely aware of how it was like ART and I had switched roles in the emotional dissection discussion. It was really, really weird.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m still not fully sure. Something about it must have been exciting enough for me to override my own better judgment.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Which you theoretically possess,” I said dryly, but I meant no harm by it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It seemed to do the job of successfully cutting the tension.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes. It’s in my manual, somewhere. </span>
  </em>
  <span>I didn't even want to begin to imagine the file size of ART’s manual. Nope. I’d have to delete too much media to download it, probably.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So which part of our interaction was so exciting? My poor choice in a fake spouse? Or how stupid the lie was?” There would never be such a lie again. I had decided next time I would simply be a very professional security consultant who never discussed it’s personal life, suspicious humans or not. I had to have standards at some point.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m still unsure. I am reviewing my log to see when my spike in excitement occurred. Perhaps we should rewatch episode 198 of Sanctuary Moon for study.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I wasn’t really sure how it would help, but I brought it up anyway and we began watching it from the beginning. I expected to feel more anxious about the wedding scene, but watching it was the same as always. ART had only made an offhand comparison to it, after all. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The wedding was the same as before. Sham beach wedding, explosion afterwards. I did briefly imagine what it would look like for ART and I to be the characters on the beach. ART overhead, maybe one of it’s drones in the place of one of the marital partners, and I on the other side. Supposedly I should wear a suit or dress or formal garb of some type, but I could only imagine those being quite fussy to handle. Maybe one of ART’s dress uniforms? Plenty of pockets, but nicer than what I would normally wear. I even considered armor for a moment before I realized exactly how ridiculous this line of thought was getting and abandoned it immediately.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The episode ended and I didn’t start another one.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I think I have discovered some things. I think the exciting part was the idea contained within the lie.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I was about to ask what exactly it meant, when it struck me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh. My core temperature rose and my performance reliability dropped a whole 5%.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You mean the, uh, married part?” I hoped I had misheard it, I really did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes, but specifically the married to </span>
  </em>
  <span>you </span>
  <em>
    <span>part.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I had zero idea how to respond. I wasn’t even sure what I thought about that. Marriage was so human. It wasn’t for bots or constructs. It was also just...more of a relationship than I ever wanted to consider.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Apparently I had opened and closed my mouth many times because I caught it mid opening again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wha-” I started but couldn’t even finish. I was seriously considering fleeing but I wasn’t sure where to or how and really it would make no difference.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Before you short circuit, allow me to elaborate. I do not have romantic feelings for you, in that sense.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That did not make me feel better in the slightest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But I would be lying if I said I didn’t care for you, in some way. The same way I know you care for me. We are friends, after all.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then what about the idea of marrying me made you excited?” Oh I didn’t like saying that. I wanted to run really far really fast but I had offered my assistance, just as ART had done so many times for me before, and so I was obligated to stay.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I suppose my context for marriage.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I recalled Martyn and Seth; Dr. Mensah and her marital partners. Arada and Overse were not married, but had all the markings of a married couple. Mainly I thought of Martyn and Seth, since they were likely ART’s primary examples. They were very professional, but I knew they had all the romance between them you would expect of a union like theirs. How was that any different than the normal context of marriage?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Elaborate,” I said, because, yeah, I was super fucking lost.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In response ART provided me a supercut of various marriages from the shows we watched together. Specifically, the happy ones done by choice, and not the ones that had been forced or arranged and made people miserable. Notably, there was the sham marriage from </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sanctuary Moon</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the marriage of the two spies who went on really cool missions together, and a few others. All the clips included were scenes where the couples were working together, accomplishing goals, foiling evil plans, breaking and entering.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After I watched it, I immediately said, “If you mean working together, then we already do that. We get up to a lot more nonsense than I think the University ever really planned on you getting up to.” I tried not to seem pleased by it. I failed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes, it’s true that we already have something like this.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you said you don’t have romantic feelings, which I don’t either. So how is this different?” I was trying to be clinical with my tone, like ART, but I had nearly choked on the words “romantic feelings” and had only managed to get it together enough to simply stumble over them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The longevity that their relationships suggest. That’s how it’s different.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I kind of felt like I had just taken a gunship to the face. Just the whole gunship, right on my face. And my chest, if we were being honest here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I was pretty sure that by longevity, ART meant commitment. Did it fear my commitment to it? What could make it think that?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Right then, the first soft chime rang through ART’s shipwide comms to mark the end of the rest period. Another would ring in ten minutes, for the crew who struggled to wake up, and then ART would specifically begin targeting the rooms of those who </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>didn’t like getting up. Part of the wake up process was ART announcing over the comms the time and date local to the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland, and also the colony planet we were still docked to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Absently I checked my calendar, as I usually did at the end of the rest period, to see what the itinerary held for the day and see where I would be needed the most, if at all. I noticed a calendar reminder and opened it and realized, then, what ART was concerned over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At the end of this mission, my contract would be up. It was truly indefinite, until the mission was complete, but it always had a tentative date for when it was expected to end, which is why it was on my calendar. Then I would either renegotiate the contract or go somewhere else, somewhere else likely being PreservationAux. I had intended to renegotiate my contract for another mission, like I usually did, but it had never occurred to me that that meant ART was never sure what I would be doing. I was a free agent, afterall, and it would never try to force me to stay. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Did it go through this every time my contract was up? Had the suggestion, however fake, that I would be more permanently committed to it in some way excited it so much it had felt the need to share it with it’s own favorite human? I had discovered that when good things happened to me, like finding a new show I really liked or having a great adventure with ART and it’s crew, I felt the urge to write a letter to Dr. Mensah.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“ART, are you worried I’m going to leave?” I asked, gently. It was my turn to check the cooking surface without burning myself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It waited a minute before responding, which gave me the tiniest idea as to the depth of ART’s emotional distress right now (maybe not exactly distress, but the same feelings I had when exploring a new topic I wasn’t sure I was ready for, which involved a lot of distress).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes. I always am.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I nodded, and wanted to implode on the spot. What was I supposed to do with that? What the </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck </span>
  </em>
  <span>was I supposed to do with that??</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, but I’m not sure how to respond,” I said as evenly as I could. I was really sorry. I knew ART probably wanted me to say I would never leave, that I would always renew my contract or enter into a long one or a permanent one; that we would always go on adventures and I would always be here. But I couldn’t. I was still figuring myself out, and knowing the things I wanted were few and far between.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I recalled the conversation I had had with Dr. Mensah what felt like forever ago. Maybe ART needed the same information, even though I assumed it had it already.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know I like being with you, ART. It’s why I always renew my contract, it’s why I’m planning on doing it again when this mission is done.” I felt it do the same thing it had done earlier that felt like relief, but on a smaller scale, and clearly not nearly as satisfying.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But I can’t say I’ll stay forever. I also can’t say I’ll go. I really don’t know, I just don’t. I thought about a longer term contract, but…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Your freedom is important to you. I would never want you to stay if you didn’t want to. That’s worse than you going.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That felt like a good way to put it, so I nodded.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe we can compromise. I can be...more communicative.” As I said this I went into my calendar and changed the notification for my contract from “end of contract” to “contract renewal”. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I could feel ART in my calendar as I changed it. I could feel it everywhere, and I knew I had a good deal of it’s attention, just like I always seemed to have.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I will be more communicative with you about my intentions, sooner rather than later. I will try not to leave you waiting, but I can’t promise when I will know. I just know that once I know, I’ll make sure you know too.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>And I will try not to let my judgment be overruled by my emotions, in the future.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you have to talk to me when you have fears about our relationship,” I added.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Alright, then you have to do the same, </span>
  </em>
  <span>it said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was the kicker, because I didn’t have any. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>ART was...well I couldn’t say easy. Nothing about ART was easy. It was, by its nature alone, complex, and always would be. But if I had to pick one thing about it that came the closest to the definition of easy (and by close I still meant a wormhole away), it was our relationship. We knew where we stood with each other, with the boundaries that I was the most confident in. Sure, we both fucked up sometimes, but that seemed to be inevitable, and after everything we had been through together, I couldn’t see the fuck ups being so bad it ended things permanently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What a disgustingly emotional sentiment. But whatever, it was true.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But, “Sure, I can do that,” was what I said, because the terms were fair enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I felt ART’s equivalent of relief flood the channel between us, and it almost drowned me, but I couldn’t blame it, so I didn’t say anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I checked the time and determined I had to leave my room and attend to my job. I ran into Iris again, since it seemed our rooms were so near, something I was beginning to suspect ART had done on purpose (and I understood why; I would want my best line of defense near Dr. Mensah and Ratthi and my PresAux crew’s rooms as well, and it just so happened ART’s best defense was me, and it’s “debris deflection array”, but that couldn’t fit in a room).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I guess Iris saw something on my face, because she smiled at me. “Good to see you’re done fighting, because we have to go back to the colony today. Fights are breaking out among the colonists and first dad asked us to return to help settle things.” She was way too chipper delivering this information. My good mood was dashed almost instantly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>ART said to me, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>only </span>
  </em>
  <span>to me, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Good luck today, marital partner. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It delivered it in a tone just as chipper as Iris, but I could feel it’s hesitation, unsure if this was safe terrain to tread.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I shot back in the feed, since we were still within earshot of Iris, who was heading to the mess, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Yeah, whatever, I’ll be home for dinner.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I was not home in time for dinner, but that was fine. Home was, for at least right now, anywhere ART was, and ART was always everywhere.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Plus, I didn’t eat dinner anyway.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Wormhole Jumpers Team Alpha was based on Stargate SG-1 fun fact</p></blockquote></div></div>
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